The Simpson College baseball team traveled to St. Scholastica to kick off the 2025 season and picked up their first win after dropping game one to the Saints. The Storm fell 10-0 after the Saints put up six on the board in the first inning, causing the Storm to fall behind early, and the Saints collected a shutout win.
Game two was a different story. The Storm struck big in the third inning with six runs, capitalized by RBI doubles from Will Carlock, Trenten Kingrey and Ian Baldwin. Also adding to the board were Levi Herrick, Drew Carlson and Bryson Gibson. Easton Dunwoody collected the win on the mound, and the Storm walked away with a dominant 16-5 victory.
“Our coach said after our game, we were feeling ourselves on what team we wanted to be, and after that, we decided, hey, this is the team we want to be,” Baldwin said. “So we bounced back, really, really, fast, really early and decided to be the team we wanted to be for the rest of the season. This year, we want to be aggressive early and stay on top of all of the small, last-minute things.”
As for the team’s goals, Baldwin said the team wants to win and be competitive this year. “A big goal for us is hitting very well because we want to be a really good hitting team, a really good pitching team and we want to be up there and compete with the top end of our conference this year,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin, who went 1-for-2 with one double and one walk in game one and 2-for-3 with two doubles, three RBIs, two walks and three runs in game two, wants to have a higher batting average this season and wants to hit more doubles than he did his first year. Last year, during his sophomore year, Baldwin batted an average of .267 and had 44 hits, six triples, 19 runs and 17 RBIs.
“This past weekend, I hit three doubles, and that pretty much tied my doubles from last year. So, I’m on the track I want to be on,” Baldwin said. “I want to produce and be the team guy everybody wants me to be.”
The Storm, who come into the season ranked seventh in the American Rivers Conference Preseason Poll, are returning other key players besides Baldwin, including all-region pitchers Trey Castile and Eli Feekin. Castile became the program’s all-time leader in strikeouts and was named third-team all-region and first-team all-conference last year. The pitching duo of Castile and Feekin led the Storm pitching staff to a 5.00 earned run average and combined for 148 of the team’s 354 strikeouts, which ranked second in the conference.
“A lot of the guys starting this year are returners from last year,” Baldwin said. “I think our chemistry, the bonds we formed over these past two or three years that we’ve been together, is really important, really special.”
In conference play last year, the Storm went 9-15, collecting league series wins over Nebraska Wesleyan, Loras and Central, and went 16-24 overall. This season’s conference play kicks off at McBride Field on March 21 against Wartburg.
The Storm will host St. Olaf for non-conference play this weekend for a three-game series at McBride.
